Walter Finch
POLICE were going door-to-door at dawn this morning in Malaga province to evacuate residents in at-risk flood zones ahead of the red alert weather warning.
They were photographed helping neighbours in the Campanillas district of Malaga, just downstream from Alora and Cartama, where much of the brunt of the coming DANA storm is expected to hit.
Meanwhile, a further 3,000 people in Alora were evacuated from low-lying homes on the banks of the Guadalhorce River.
They are being taken to the Tiro Pichon sports centre in Malaga city among other venues, which has been readied to accommodate its new arrivals with temporary beds and water.
It comes after the Costa del Sol, Guadalhorce Valley and the Axarquia were all placed on a red alert for ‘extreme rainfall’.
The warning, from state weather agency Aemet, kicks in at 10am on Wednesday and lasts for the entire day.
The instruction to ‘avoid all unnecessary journeys and to stay off the roads wherever possible’ looks to have been followed very carefully.
Combined with the closure of schools across Malaga province, and the motorways have been eerily quiet.
Spanish traffic authority DGT’s South-East Management Centre reported just after 8am that traffic was completely fluid on the Malaga road network.
It comes as locals fear a ‘DANA panic’ is setting in after supermarkets were left with empty shelves across the province.
A Malaga-based journalist on X shared photos of a Mercadona that was left completely bare on Tuesday night, comparing the ‘psychosis’ to the height of the Covid pandemic four years ago.
The developments follow the unprecedented decision to send out Civil Protection alerts to mobile phones in the affected areas around 10pm last night.
Flooding has already been reported in the municipality of Coín, where over 70mm of rain has fallen so far today.
Videos are starting to emerge of flooding in residential areas in Velez-Malaga as well.
Cartama and La Viñuela also have registered intense rainfall.
Meanwhile, a waterspout was filmed off the coast of Marbella as the much feared DANA begins to strike the region.
